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Georges and Anne are an octogenarian couple. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. Their daughter, also a musician, lives in Britain with her family. One day, Anne has a stroke, and the couple's bond of love is severely tested. Full summary » | Add synopsis »

Goofs:

Continuity: When Georges and Anne are eating together he first cuts her food for her with a Laguiole knife. Later on he is holding a classic knife with a round point.See more »

Quotes:

Anne:There's no point in going on living. That's how it is. I know it can only get worse. Why should I inflict this on us, on you and me? Georges:You're not inflicting anything on me. Anne:You don't have to lie, Georges. Georges:[looks down at the floor contemplatively] Put yourself in my place. Didn't you ever think that it could happen to me, too? Anne:Of course I did. But imagination and reality have little in common. Georges:But things are getting better every day. Anne:I don't want to carry on. You're making such sweet efforts to make everything easier for me. But I don't want to go on. For my own sake, not yours. [...] See more »

Just when I thought Michael Haneke could surprise me no more, he comes
along with a film like this. A film for which the jury at Cannes gave
him his 2nd Palme d'Or in four years. And nothing less than this film
deserves.

The story of an elderly French couple, their deteriorating health and
devotion to each other is the basis, and allows the Austrian auteur to
inject something rarely if ever seen in any of his films to date,
heart.

Some of the typical Haneke touches are still there; the suffocating
sense that something terrible is going to happen being his signature.
His previous film, the 2008 Palme d'Or winning The White Ribbon keeps
up this omnipresent dread for almost its entire runtime (also see the
deus ex machina in Funny Games, and continuous sense of dread in
Hidden). With these films Haneke has proved himself to be the biggest
audience manipulator since the greatest of them all, Alfred Hitchcock.

But there's nothing artificially manipulative in Amour. And there's
none of the sentimentality less able directors would fall back on given
the film's subject matter. The acting and characterisation so good that
sentiment is never needed, and is in fact the very last thing you'd
come across in a Haneke picture.

The emotion felt towards the two protagonists as they struggle with
coming to the end of their lives actually gave me a crushing sensation
in my chest by the end of the runtime. This is an extremely tough film
to watch at times, and on more than one occasion I had to look away
from the screen.

The biggest compliment I can give this film, is that it make me want to
call my parents.

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